One girl's salt is another girl's fleur de sel

June 30, 2008

Foraging for mushrooms - in my Chicago Alley

The other day as I was taking my dog out to do her thing, I decided to take a closer look at the dead tree next to our building that the developer has, inexplicably, decided to leave for us to deal with.

Looking more closely at its trunk, I noticed some white fungus. Familiar looking white fungus.

Recognize it yet? Maybe a closer look will help:

This picture, of the bunch I ended up picking, shows pretty clearly what I found: oyster mushrooms.

Back when I lived in Vermont I used to forage for mushrooms, but never found oyster mushrooms. And here in my inner city Chicago neighborhood, oyster mushrooms were growing on a dead tree in my yard. No one shared my excitement - friends seemed frightened at the promise of a meal focused around my Chicago-foraged mushrooms. I tried to reassure them that there are no poisonous oyster mushroom-lookalikes in North America. Yeah, didn't help. So I ate them by myself, sauteed in olive oil with garlic, red chilies, and thyme. They were delicious. And no, I experienced no gastric distress. Or death.

of course after i move out, i gladly would have eaten some. i used to go looking for mushrooms when i lived on the oregon coast quite a bit...but usually the, uh, "experimental" kind. i did find some nice morels once though.

It's a long and sad story, but no, I am no longer finding those mushrooms, mostly due to the fact that I don't live there anymore. The neighbors still haven't removed the tree - last time I was there, a few months ago, I noticed that mushrooms were still appearing, and, sadly, rotting. No one dares to eat the alley mushrooms!

I had some appear on a damaged tree with a small rotting section. I was leery about eating them as I had no expert assuring me of their edibility. If I had seen you eat a plate and survived, I would surly try them myself. They are still there but well past their prime I suspect as they are turning from their initial creamy off-white colour.